He spent a long time doing something that(even if he shouldn't have) he thought would lead to an income, or atleast, he thought it SHOULD lead to one given the interests corporations have had in his project.
Apparantly, he missed this whole 'community' thing that we've all been enjoying so much. He wasn't selling his product, he was giving it away. As another poster said, 'live by the gpl, die by the gpl'. He's giving his work away for free, and he shouldn't expect it to lead to anything. If he was doing it for personal gain, he was doing it for the wrong reasons.
It is GPLed software, and that is how it goes sometimes, a company can 'steal' your project code and not hire you or pay homage to your hardwork, that pissed this guy off.
It's not stealing. Once again, he gave it away - as he had to. He chose to work on an open-source solution, and he came up with an open-source solution. The rules of the game he was playing said that anyone could use his solution free of charge, and they did. There's nothing wrong with that. When I write software, I don't expect to be put on a pedestal, even if I do think it's really good. If someone wants to use my code, that's enough of a thanks for me, as it shows that they think I did a better job than they can. Make no mistake though, I don't think I deserve anything, and no one's 'stealing' my code. It's given freely, with no strings attached.
Apparantly, that's an idea that slipped this guy's mind.
While this was, of course, just a joke, am I the only one who misses After Dark (and Beyond After Dark)? There were some pretty freaking cool screen savers in that pack, and I'm sorry, but all this OpenGL crap and mazes with psychedelic textures and spermy-floating windows logos and everything just doesn't compare to the thrill you get by mixing the cute little kitten screen saver with the guy-mowing-the-lawn screen saver.
While a lot of artists seem to have a few good songs and fill the rest of the album with crap, there are a few that have good reason for not wanting their albums to be taken apart.
Alanis Morisette, for example, is a very emotional person, and she puts that emotion into her albums. She doesn't sit down and write a song, and then when she has a bunch of songs, compile them into an album. Instead, she suddenly gets the mood (what hackers call 'the zone'), and writes an album to express how she feels at the time. Taking that apart, disassembling it and sharing the pieces for a dollar each, it just doesn't seem right.
Another example is Prozzak. Their albums tell a whole story - the search for True Love - and you can hear the progression from one song to another. There isn't a coherant and evolving plot, sure, but the songs are all closely interrelated, and if you just buy 'Omobolasire' and say 'hey, it's cool', you'll miss out on what the rest of the album has to offer.
How on earth is this 'Insightful'? Seriously? Where's the insight?
This is not about removing choice, it's about removing incompatibility. You know, the thing that Slashdot is always harping on MS about? By promoting compatibility, it will make it easier to use, and unless it's easier to use, no one will want to use it.
Remember, we're dealing with OS X here - the users in question are people who appreciate simplicity that just works, without having to screw around with it. Why would I spend three thousand bucks on a system that I know will 'just work' out of the box, and then cruft it up with three variations of crap from three separate packaging systems, none of which are interoperable, because some troll wanted 'choice' instead of 'usability'? It doesn't make sense.
There's something to be said for doing things differently, but there's also something to be said for doing things right, and in this case, it's the latter.
The drawbacks to having fragmented marketshare (like KDE & GNOME) is sometimes--but not always--outweighed by the improvements caused by having strong competition.
The problem is, as you point out later, inconsistancy. You can't troubleshoot Linux nearly as easily, because you have to say 'Ok, go to the menu with the foot on it, and choose- what? Oh, ok, the menu with the K on it. And then go to, uhh.. let me see, I only ever use Gnome.' Having to know twice as much can interfere ver much with helping someone.
Rather than consolidation, I'd rather see competing products like KDE & Gnome come up with common standards. For example, KDE & Gnome could come up with very specific & consistent user interface standards and adhere to them in their products.
As I recall, they agreed to work together on this a while ago. I could be wrong, but it's in the slashdot archives I'm sure.
Microsoft did a great job (compared to Linux) in not only coming up with Windows UI standards but in preaching it: the vast majority of Windows apps writting by diverse vendors has a FILE, EDIT, HELP, etc. menu and they are rather consistent in their content too. CONSISTENCY IS IMPORTANT.
Microsoft did a horrible job with their GUI. The standards you mention (File, edit, help) have been around since the early Mac days, and are in a slew of DOS programs too. Microsoft, however, made a lot of very bad design decisions - such as using 'Yes/No/Cancel' or 'OK/Cancel' dialogs whenever a choice needs to be made, instead of properly labelling the buttons with exactly what they do.
They also don't stress the importance of making one's program follow the same pattern as the 'standard'. Most programs, when you try to close them, have a 'Save? [Yes/No/Cancel]' dialog, but enough of them have an 'Abandon changes? [Yes/No/Cancel]' dialog to make life frustrating for anyone who deals with a wide variety of programs. If you want real UI guidelines, check out the latest ones from Apple. It's a near-religious text.
I'd like to see Linux be different where it counts: like stabiliy, security, open standards, Unix-like shell & filesystem, etc. But I don't see the point of being different for its own sake (like throwing out MS Windows GUI/UI guidelines so that 95% of pc users will find it less desirable to switch to Linux).
Linux environment programmers (KDE, GNOME, etc) have three main options. If they copy the Windows behaviour, it'll be familiar to Windows users, but the Windows behaviour makes little sense in a lot of circumstances (See above)
If they (properly) copy the MacOS behaviour, they will have a system that feels and works properly even to a completely new user, but most people consider it 'wrong' because it's not what they're used to. As such, it will probably never be adopted, since a lot of people refuse to give it a chance.
If they make their own guidelines, then obviously, they'll have the freedom to make their own standards, which they can tailor to suit their programs. This is bad, but it's what will happen. As evidenced by Sun's usability study, programmers design interfaces for themselves and others, but don't tend to consider what other people are used to or will find intuitive - well, how would they know? It makes sense to the programmers. A lot of programmers consider the UI an 'interface to the user for the code' - a way for the code to get itself run - rather than 'an interface for the user to the code' - a way for the user to make the code do what they want.
What the GNOME/KDE projects need are clear heirarchies, and priorities. Unfortunately, GTK is such a rabid bitch to code in (compare to Cocoa) and not many programs use Glade, so UI designers have the harsh end of the stick. I also can't help but feel there's a feeling with GNOME programmers that only 'real programming' is beneficial - documentation and UI design can be 'good enough' (docs and UI can never be 'good enough'). If it's there i
If you know how computers work, it's not much of a leap to programming them.
Ah, but there's more to programming than 'know[ing] how computers work'. There are the fundamental design philosophies, object-orientation, project management, team development, debugging, releases - the whole gamut of Software Engineering courses. Not to say that it's some exclusive field, but just because you're a good systems admin doesn't mean you're a good programmer automatically, or vice-versa.
directors alter their "vision" ALL THE TIME! after all show me a director that's not going to chop up his "vision" to avoid an NC-17 or *gasp* an X rating.
I dunno. Stanley Kubrick? Quentin Tarantino? There's more, I'm sure. I doubt Spielberg would, but I don't think he'd make a film that would acquire an NC-17 or X rating in the first place.
I use my cellphone for any and all calls I make. It's $10 more per month, and since I get unlimited evenings/weekends, I just get long-distance people to call me instead, and all is well. Plus, I can take it with me, I can turn it off whenever I want, and I get voicemail too. Funny thing is, a local land line with voicemail would cost about the same. Go figure.
In the past, simple Tetris-like games have been the mainstays of the shareware industry.
Don't forget that one mac shareware game where you try to drop the guy from the helecopter into the haywagon (or onto the ground, or the horse, or the driver).
I find that the mac world in general is more open to shareware. In the Windows universe, the trend seems to be 'try it for 30 days, and if you like it, google for a crack' - everyone I know does this. I don't know anyone who's actually paid for 'shareware' - most of the time, because it's not worth paying for.
However, when, last year, my parents got their G4 set up with OS X, I went looking to see what I could find, and I found Unsanity software, which had a lot of really good little utilities, some free, some shareware, but all extremely handy.
One thing about being a mac owner is you feel as you're part of the community. Maybe it's just my history (the first computer I'd ever seen was a Mac Plus), maybe it's the small marketshare, but when you find out someone's a mac user too, things change. You know that either they have played Escape Velocity, or that they will thank (or curse) you for introducing them to it. You know all the handy utilities, and can tell them about ones you know of that they don't, and vice versa.
When I tried out this Unsanity software, I wanted to pay for it - not because the trial was going to run out, but because it was worth paying for. The website only took credit cards, and I could only use paypal at the time, so I tracked the programmer down on IRC, and asked if there was any way I could paypal money to him. To my surprise, he actually gave me a hell of a deal on the whole package - even stuff I hadn't intended to purchase.
Since then, whenever someone asks if I have a registration code for any mac shareware, I always tell them that they should pay, because it's worth it. In the Windows world, however, there's always another program that does the same thing, and it either has a longer trial, or no timeout.
However don't be so naive as to think that egos aren't a huge factor as companies pursue profit.
In Canada, there were two huge chains of bookstores: Chapters and Indigo. Indigo's large stores carried large amounts of music and movies as well as books (the average sized mall music store in Canada was smaller than their Montreal store's music section). Chapters was all about books.
The two competed fairly well, one must say, in that they both had stores and both had sales. But that wasn't enough. The two CEOs of the companies had it in for each other. They hated each other, make no mistake, and the feud was so well known that CBC News even did an in-depth backgrounder about it.
Recently, Indigo managed to take over Chapters, and now we have one company. In the interests of not doubling efforts, the Indigo CEO decided to close some stores - some Chapters stores. That would be reasonable, except that every one of the Chapters stores was making a profit - and none of the Indigo stores were.
So when dealing with corporations, yes, profit is a motive, but sometimes, personal vendettas are even more of a motive. One upside though is that if I ever need to pull an Ocean's Eleven on Indigo, I know who to go to.
Anyway, Apple is getting a little taste of it's own medicine. Didn't they sue somone over them copying, or making a similar color scheme on a pc case?
This is slightly different. Apple's lawsuit was to protect a very unique and novel computer design that was very indicitive of their product, and stood out very much in its field.
'UNIX', however, is an extremely generic term. People call Linux 'UNIX' (but are wrong), FreeBSD is UNIX, H-PUX is UNIX, AIX is UNIX, and so on and so on. It doesn't *mean* anything anymore, or at least, it doesn't mean one specific thing anymore. No 'UNIX 'is really any more UNIX than any other 'UNIX'. The philosophies are the same, but it really is a generic, overused, and generally valueless term. Apple's in the right in this case.
You can run the same OS (theoretically) on x86 and PPC? It's a nicer system (opinion)? FreeBSD sucks (opinion)? The FreeBSD 'help' is usually more abusive than helpful (experience)?
or GNU/Linux?
Linux has all kinds of problems (every time I try to compile Linux, it gets about 30 seconds into make bzImage and errors out). Don't want to be associated with Linux zealots? Linux can be a pain to run on PPC? You can run the same (command-line) apps on GNU-Darwin as on OS X?
If it's IOKit & Mach that give you a hardon, then what's the advantage of gnu-darwin over GNU/Hurd?
Darwin doesn't use Mach? Darwin's actually usable at this point? Darwin has drivers for hardware supported by OS X? Darwin works on PPC (does Hurd)?
Hack value?
Just some ideas. Personally, I'd use Open Darwin, but there's always reasons. The question people should be asking isn't 'Why?' but rather 'Why not?'
The operating system relocates the EXE when it's loaded. EXE's don't (normally) load data from themselves, they load them from external overlays. As long as the execution point points to where the PKLITE code is, it will run fine.
I agree with you to a point, as long as there are reasonable limits. I don't want them selling my information to other people so they can send me targeted junk mail or spam (though the fact that I only buy in person should be in my profile too).
I was watching TV the other day (a habit to which I've only recently returned), and a commercial came on for some femenine hygene product or something. That's fine, happens all the time, sure. It occured to me then that if people could target ads, then I wouldn't see those ads (I consider myself an 'informed shopper', but for some things, I could never be informed enough). Or take another example: 'How's your diarrhea?' Those commercials are in incredibly poor taste. There are tactful ways to advertise things like that, and there are crude ways, and those commercials tend towards crude. I don't want to see them.
If there was the capacity for me to vote on commercials I see, and for the system to automatically target ads depending on my preferences and then bill the advertisers for it, life would be great. Commercials I don't want to see get moderated down out of existance (as far as I'm concerned), and commercials that I like (IBM, Apple, Fruit Breezers, Mello Yello, though I'd never drink the drink) I would get to see more of.
The only difficulties with this would be that it would be difficult to reconcile this with other people (I don't want my girlfriend coming in and jacking up the ratings on sears and home hardware commercials); if this were solved by giving everyone a certain preference (identifying to the individual, not the cable account), then they'd know if Jamie from the coffee shop moves in with me, and could inundate me with phone dating ads after she suddenly shows up asking for home hardware ads at some other guy's place.
A misguided troublemaker, you are. They're checking your reciept to make sure that you haven't tried to sneak anything out. Shrinkage. Shoplifting is a problem, and having someone checking at the door is a simple way to prevent casual shoplifters. It doesn't stop everyone, of course, but it helps. What you're doing is causing trouble just to be a jerk because you think you have some self-righteous cause.
It's not like they're strip-searching you, they're making sure that you've bought that merchandise. You go to Wal-Mart for one of two reasons: selection and price, probably price. Price is something they can keep down because of the efforts they take to prevent shoplifting, so if you don't like it, go pay more somewhere else, so I don't have to wait while you harass the minimum-wage employees.
I second this comment. Years ago, a friend and I played Area 51, which was new at the time, for ten dollars worth of quarters (well, $0.25 tokens) at $0.75/play and $0.50 to continue. For those ten dollars, we went through the game six times start to finish.
Recently I found the game in an arcade and coerced a friend into playing. Aside from costing $0.75per play or continue (what happened to old games getting cheaper?), the difficulty was turned up as hard as it would go. Despite being a crack shot and memorizing most of the game (it's not that long of a game), I found myself dead and $5 poorer in a matter of ten minutes.
It's no trouble at all to go through twenty dollars in ten minutes at the current arcades. Operators either run them for extra cash (movie theatres) or get by on kids coming in, spending five bucks their mother gave them, and leaving.
When I can download the latest blockbuster hits from the newsgroups, rent the latest XBox games at Microplay, and buy pre-owns at EB, there's no reason for me to go to a crappy, poorly-run arcade with a depressing atmosphere. Now, if there were a Very Good Arcade in the neighbourhood, I might feel differently...
how am i supposed to find that good looking girl next door now, huh?
I'd recommend a telescope, maybe some binoculars, a camcorder, and a night-vision scope. Works wonders for finding that perfect girl (single, sophisticated, leaves her blinds open). Try it out.
Besides I'm paranoid. I backtrace most the people I chat with for any length of time so that I can find out who they really are.... I've tried to do that in real life but it takes more work.
I can fool just about anybody in person. Sociopaths are very good at faking facial expressions...
It's much easier to social engineer in person...
So according to your post, you're a sociopathic, manipulative stalker? Er, no offence, but I think you're of the sort people trying to stay away from.;)
Similarly, if you buy a system and then Apple upgrades the product line within 30 days, you can upgrade to the new model instead - in fact, Apple will (apparantly) not ship your order if you purchase a few days or whatever before they unveil a new line, so that they can ship you the new one instead.
Slashdot Mirror
He spent a long time doing something that(even if he shouldn't have) he thought would lead to an income, or atleast, he thought it SHOULD lead to one given the interests corporations have had in his project.
Apparantly, he missed this whole 'community' thing that we've all been enjoying so much. He wasn't selling his product, he was giving it away. As another poster said, 'live by the gpl, die by the gpl'. He's giving his work away for free, and he shouldn't expect it to lead to anything. If he was doing it for personal gain, he was doing it for the wrong reasons.
It is GPLed software, and that is how it goes sometimes, a company can 'steal' your project code and not hire you or pay homage to your hardwork, that pissed this guy off.
It's not stealing. Once again, he gave it away - as he had to. He chose to work on an open-source solution, and he came up with an open-source solution. The rules of the game he was playing said that anyone could use his solution free of charge, and they did. There's nothing wrong with that. When I write software, I don't expect to be put on a pedestal, even if I do think it's really good. If someone wants to use my code, that's enough of a thanks for me, as it shows that they think I did a better job than they can. Make no mistake though, I don't think I deserve anything, and no one's 'stealing' my code. It's given freely, with no strings attached.
Apparantly, that's an idea that slipped this guy's mind.
--Dan
Isn't After Dark supposed to be released for OS X any day now?
Well I'll be damned. Too bad it doesn't have any of the classics, and the reviews are generally negative, it seems.
--Dan
While this was, of course, just a joke, am I the only one who misses After Dark (and Beyond After Dark)? There were some pretty freaking cool screen savers in that pack, and I'm sorry, but all this OpenGL crap and mazes with psychedelic textures and spermy-floating windows logos and everything just doesn't compare to the thrill you get by mixing the cute little kitten screen saver with the guy-mowing-the-lawn screen saver.
:/
My mac heritage is starting to show again.
--Dan
While a lot of artists seem to have a few good songs and fill the rest of the album with crap, there are a few that have good reason for not wanting their albums to be taken apart.
Alanis Morisette, for example, is a very emotional person, and she puts that emotion into her albums. She doesn't sit down and write a song, and then when she has a bunch of songs, compile them into an album. Instead, she suddenly gets the mood (what hackers call 'the zone'), and writes an album to express how she feels at the time. Taking that apart, disassembling it and sharing the pieces for a dollar each, it just doesn't seem right.
Another example is Prozzak. Their albums tell a whole story - the search for True Love - and you can hear the progression from one song to another. There isn't a coherant and evolving plot, sure, but the songs are all closely interrelated, and if you just buy 'Omobolasire' and say 'hey, it's cool', you'll miss out on what the rest of the album has to offer.
--Dan
How on earth is this 'Insightful'? Seriously? Where's the insight?
This is not about removing choice, it's about removing incompatibility. You know, the thing that Slashdot is always harping on MS about? By promoting compatibility, it will make it easier to use, and unless it's easier to use, no one will want to use it.
Remember, we're dealing with OS X here - the users in question are people who appreciate simplicity that just works, without having to screw around with it. Why would I spend three thousand bucks on a system that I know will 'just work' out of the box, and then cruft it up with three variations of crap from three separate packaging systems, none of which are interoperable, because some troll wanted 'choice' instead of 'usability'? It doesn't make sense.
There's something to be said for doing things differently, but there's also something to be said for doing things right, and in this case, it's the latter.
--Dan
The drawbacks to having fragmented marketshare (like KDE & GNOME) is sometimes--but not always--outweighed by the improvements caused by having strong competition.
The problem is, as you point out later, inconsistancy. You can't troubleshoot Linux nearly as easily, because you have to say 'Ok, go to the menu with the foot on it, and choose- what? Oh, ok, the menu with the K on it. And then go to, uhh.. let me see, I only ever use Gnome.' Having to know twice as much can interfere ver much with helping someone.
Rather than consolidation, I'd rather see competing products like KDE & Gnome come up with common standards. For example, KDE & Gnome could come up with very specific & consistent user interface standards and adhere to them in their products.
As I recall, they agreed to work together on this a while ago. I could be wrong, but it's in the slashdot archives I'm sure.
Microsoft did a great job (compared to Linux) in not only coming up with Windows UI standards but in preaching it: the vast majority of Windows apps writting by diverse vendors has a FILE, EDIT, HELP, etc. menu and they are rather consistent in their content too. CONSISTENCY IS IMPORTANT.
Microsoft did a horrible job with their GUI. The standards you mention (File, edit, help) have been around since the early Mac days, and are in a slew of DOS programs too. Microsoft, however, made a lot of very bad design decisions - such as using 'Yes/No/Cancel' or 'OK/Cancel' dialogs whenever a choice needs to be made, instead of properly labelling the buttons with exactly what they do.
They also don't stress the importance of making one's program follow the same pattern as the 'standard'. Most programs, when you try to close them, have a 'Save? [Yes/No/Cancel]' dialog, but enough of them have an 'Abandon changes? [Yes/No/Cancel]' dialog to make life frustrating for anyone who deals with a wide variety of programs. If you want real UI guidelines, check out the latest ones from Apple. It's a near-religious text.
I'd like to see Linux be different where it counts: like stabiliy, security, open standards, Unix-like shell & filesystem, etc. But I don't see the point of being different for its own sake (like throwing out MS Windows GUI/UI guidelines so that 95% of pc users will find it less desirable to switch to Linux).
Linux environment programmers (KDE, GNOME, etc) have three main options. If they copy the Windows behaviour, it'll be familiar to Windows users, but the Windows behaviour makes little sense in a lot of circumstances (See above)
If they (properly) copy the MacOS behaviour, they will have a system that feels and works properly even to a completely new user, but most people consider it 'wrong' because it's not what they're used to. As such, it will probably never be adopted, since a lot of people refuse to give it a chance.
If they make their own guidelines, then obviously, they'll have the freedom to make their own standards, which they can tailor to suit their programs. This is bad, but it's what will happen. As evidenced by Sun's usability study, programmers design interfaces for themselves and others, but don't tend to consider what other people are used to or will find intuitive - well, how would they know? It makes sense to the programmers. A lot of programmers consider the UI an 'interface to the user for the code' - a way for the code to get itself run - rather than 'an interface for the user to the code' - a way for the user to make the code do what they want.
What the GNOME/KDE projects need are clear heirarchies, and priorities. Unfortunately, GTK is such a rabid bitch to code in (compare to Cocoa) and not many programs use Glade, so UI designers have the harsh end of the stick. I also can't help but feel there's a feeling with GNOME programmers that only 'real programming' is beneficial - documentation and UI design can be 'good enough' (docs and UI can never be 'good enough'). If it's there i
If you know how computers work, it's not much of a leap to programming them.
Ah, but there's more to programming than 'know[ing] how computers work'. There are the fundamental design philosophies, object-orientation, project management, team development, debugging, releases - the whole gamut of Software Engineering courses. Not to say that it's some exclusive field, but just because you're a good systems admin doesn't mean you're a good programmer automatically, or vice-versa.
--Dan
directors alter their "vision" ALL THE TIME! after all show me a director that's not going to chop up his "vision" to avoid an NC-17 or *gasp* an X rating.
I dunno. Stanley Kubrick? Quentin Tarantino? There's more, I'm sure. I doubt Spielberg would, but I don't think he'd make a film that would acquire an NC-17 or X rating in the first place.
--Dan
I use my cellphone for any and all calls I make. It's $10 more per month, and since I get unlimited evenings/weekends, I just get long-distance people to call me instead, and all is well. Plus, I can take it with me, I can turn it off whenever I want, and I get voicemail too. Funny thing is, a local land line with voicemail would cost about the same. Go figure.
--Dan
In the past, simple Tetris-like games have been the mainstays of the shareware industry.
Don't forget that one mac shareware game where you try to drop the guy from the helecopter into the haywagon (or onto the ground, or the horse, or the driver).
I miss those classic shareware games...
--Dan
I find that the mac world in general is more open to shareware. In the Windows universe, the trend seems to be 'try it for 30 days, and if you like it, google for a crack' - everyone I know does this. I don't know anyone who's actually paid for 'shareware' - most of the time, because it's not worth paying for.
However, when, last year, my parents got their G4 set up with OS X, I went looking to see what I could find, and I found Unsanity software, which had a lot of really good little utilities, some free, some shareware, but all extremely handy.
One thing about being a mac owner is you feel as you're part of the community. Maybe it's just my history (the first computer I'd ever seen was a Mac Plus), maybe it's the small marketshare, but when you find out someone's a mac user too, things change. You know that either they have played Escape Velocity, or that they will thank (or curse) you for introducing them to it. You know all the handy utilities, and can tell them about ones you know of that they don't, and vice versa.
When I tried out this Unsanity software, I wanted to pay for it - not because the trial was going to run out, but because it was worth paying for. The website only took credit cards, and I could only use paypal at the time, so I tracked the programmer down on IRC, and asked if there was any way I could paypal money to him. To my surprise, he actually gave me a hell of a deal on the whole package - even stuff I hadn't intended to purchase.
Since then, whenever someone asks if I have a registration code for any mac shareware, I always tell them that they should pay, because it's worth it. In the Windows world, however, there's always another program that does the same thing, and it either has a longer trial, or no timeout.
--Dan
Is it just me?
:/
Yeah, we wanted to see how long you'd take to figure it out yourself. Unfortunately, since he gave it away, you don't get the price.
--Dan
However don't be so naive as to think that egos aren't a huge factor as companies pursue profit.
In Canada, there were two huge chains of bookstores: Chapters and Indigo. Indigo's large stores carried large amounts of music and movies as well as books (the average sized mall music store in Canada was smaller than their Montreal store's music section). Chapters was all about books.
The two competed fairly well, one must say, in that they both had stores and both had sales. But that wasn't enough. The two CEOs of the companies had it in for each other. They hated each other, make no mistake, and the feud was so well known that CBC News even did an in-depth backgrounder about it.
Recently, Indigo managed to take over Chapters, and now we have one company. In the interests of not doubling efforts, the Indigo CEO decided to close some stores - some Chapters stores. That would be reasonable, except that every one of the Chapters stores was making a profit - and none of the Indigo stores were.
So when dealing with corporations, yes, profit is a motive, but sometimes, personal vendettas are even more of a motive. One upside though is that if I ever need to pull an Ocean's Eleven on Indigo, I know who to go to.
--Dan
Anyway, Apple is getting a little taste of it's own medicine. Didn't they sue somone over them copying, or making a similar color scheme on a pc case?
This is slightly different. Apple's lawsuit was to protect a very unique and novel computer design that was very indicitive of their product, and stood out very much in its field.
'UNIX', however, is an extremely generic term. People call Linux 'UNIX' (but are wrong), FreeBSD is UNIX, H-PUX is UNIX, AIX is UNIX, and so on and so on. It doesn't *mean* anything anymore, or at least, it doesn't mean one specific thing anymore. No 'UNIX 'is really any more UNIX than any other 'UNIX'. The philosophies are the same, but it really is a generic, overused, and generally valueless term. Apple's in the right in this case.
--Dan
What is the advantage to gnu-darwin over FreeBSD
You can run the same OS (theoretically) on x86 and PPC? It's a nicer system (opinion)? FreeBSD sucks (opinion)? The FreeBSD 'help' is usually more abusive than helpful (experience)?
or GNU/Linux?
Linux has all kinds of problems (every time I try to compile Linux, it gets about 30 seconds into make bzImage and errors out). Don't want to be associated with Linux zealots? Linux can be a pain to run on PPC? You can run the same (command-line) apps on GNU-Darwin as on OS X?
If it's IOKit & Mach that give you a hardon, then what's the advantage of gnu-darwin over GNU/Hurd?
Darwin doesn't use Mach? Darwin's actually usable at this point? Darwin has drivers for hardware supported by OS X? Darwin works on PPC (does Hurd)?
Hack value?
Just some ideas. Personally, I'd use Open Darwin, but there's always reasons. The question people should be asking isn't 'Why?' but rather 'Why not?'
--Dan
The operating system relocates the EXE when it's loaded. EXE's don't (normally) load data from themselves, they load them from external overlays. As long as the execution point points to where the PKLITE code is, it will run fine.
--Dan
It should be noted that USB2 and Firewire serve entirely different purposes, and that they don't compete at all.
--Dan
The Last Starfighter
--Dan
I agree with you to a point, as long as there are reasonable limits. I don't want them selling my information to other people so they can send me targeted junk mail or spam (though the fact that I only buy in person should be in my profile too).
I was watching TV the other day (a habit to which I've only recently returned), and a commercial came on for some femenine hygene product or something. That's fine, happens all the time, sure. It occured to me then that if people could target ads, then I wouldn't see those ads (I consider myself an 'informed shopper', but for some things, I could never be informed enough). Or take another example: 'How's your diarrhea?' Those commercials are in incredibly poor taste. There are tactful ways to advertise things like that, and there are crude ways, and those commercials tend towards crude. I don't want to see them.
If there was the capacity for me to vote on commercials I see, and for the system to automatically target ads depending on my preferences and then bill the advertisers for it, life would be great. Commercials I don't want to see get moderated down out of existance (as far as I'm concerned), and commercials that I like (IBM, Apple, Fruit Breezers, Mello Yello, though I'd never drink the drink) I would get to see more of.
The only difficulties with this would be that it would be difficult to reconcile this with other people (I don't want my girlfriend coming in and jacking up the ratings on sears and home hardware commercials); if this were solved by giving everyone a certain preference (identifying to the individual, not the cable account), then they'd know if Jamie from the coffee shop moves in with me, and could inundate me with phone dating ads after she suddenly shows up asking for home hardware ads at some other guy's place.
Other than that, I'm all for it.
--Dan
A misguided troublemaker, you are. They're checking your reciept to make sure that you haven't tried to sneak anything out. Shrinkage. Shoplifting is a problem, and having someone checking at the door is a simple way to prevent casual shoplifters. It doesn't stop everyone, of course, but it helps. What you're doing is causing trouble just to be a jerk because you think you have some self-righteous cause.
It's not like they're strip-searching you, they're making sure that you've bought that merchandise. You go to Wal-Mart for one of two reasons: selection and price, probably price. Price is something they can keep down because of the efforts they take to prevent shoplifting, so if you don't like it, go pay more somewhere else, so I don't have to wait while you harass the minimum-wage employees.
--Dan
I second this comment. Years ago, a friend and I played Area 51, which was new at the time, for ten dollars worth of quarters (well, $0.25 tokens) at $0.75/play and $0.50 to continue. For those ten dollars, we went through the game six times start to finish.
Recently I found the game in an arcade and coerced a friend into playing. Aside from costing $0.75per play or continue (what happened to old games getting cheaper?), the difficulty was turned up as hard as it would go. Despite being a crack shot and memorizing most of the game (it's not that long of a game), I found myself dead and $5 poorer in a matter of ten minutes.
It's no trouble at all to go through twenty dollars in ten minutes at the current arcades. Operators either run them for extra cash (movie theatres) or get by on kids coming in, spending five bucks their mother gave them, and leaving.
When I can download the latest blockbuster hits from the newsgroups, rent the latest XBox games at Microplay, and buy pre-owns at EB, there's no reason for me to go to a crappy, poorly-run arcade with a depressing atmosphere. Now, if there were a Very Good Arcade in the neighbourhood, I might feel differently...
--Dan
if you develop for a company, you do not have the choice, you have to re-invent the weel (or hide it from your superior and legal teams).
Not to mention SCO.
--Dan
how am i supposed to find that good looking girl next door now, huh?
I'd recommend a telescope, maybe some binoculars, a camcorder, and a night-vision scope. Works wonders for finding that perfect girl (single, sophisticated, leaves her blinds open). Try it out.
--Dan
Besides I'm paranoid. I backtrace most the people I chat with for any length of time so that I can find out who they really are. ... I've tried to do that in real life but it takes more work.
;)
I can fool just about anybody in person. Sociopaths are very good at faking facial expressions...
It's much easier to social engineer in person...
So according to your post, you're a sociopathic, manipulative stalker? Er, no offence, but I think you're of the sort people trying to stay away from.
--Dan
Similarly, if you buy a system and then Apple upgrades the product line within 30 days, you can upgrade to the new model instead - in fact, Apple will (apparantly) not ship your order if you purchase a few days or whatever before they unveil a new line, so that they can ship you the new one instead.
--Dan